Customer Reviews

NETGEAR RangeMax Premium Wireless-N Gigabit Router (WNR3500)

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

I purchased this router for 2 reasons: Wireless-N and Gigabit router.

PRO/CON:
- Wireless signal is quite strong and is able to go far distances. I was an early adopter of Wireless-N, and to had to purchase a new one to replace my D-Link DIR-635 because it became unstable after the draft was approved.
- Gigabit router works well and transfers well between my computer and home fileserver. You'll see a green light if you're connected through Gigabit speeds and an orange light if your speed is 10/100 Mbps.
- For some reason, when I use a nameserver (OpenDNS) outside of my ISP's, the router becomes unstable and disconnects from the Internet every now and then. Using OpenDNS as primary and ISP's NS as secondary appears to fix the problem.
- Wireless security (WPA/WPA2) is very easy to setup.
- The blue flashing lights at the top of router is pretty cool, but useless at the same time. Fortunately, there is an off button on the back of the router.
- For those wanting to save the planet, this device is rated Energy Star compliant.

UPDATE: I'm giving this router 4 of 5 stars because it is a good router. I have not had any problems since I updated the firmware. Also, all 4 ports are Gigabit speeds (I originally reported 2 of 4).

The WNR3500 looks good and has decent wireless range. That is all that I can say good about it. I have used Netgear switches for years with excellent results so I was expecting that the WNR3500 would also be a high quality product. I installed the unit and configured it without much trouble. It was a pretty basic installation with one computer on a wired gigabit connection, a second computer on a 100Mb wired connection, an 8-port gigabit switch with a media extender and a TV connected to it, and two wireless connections. The wireless connections were for a Wii game console and an Ipod Touch. The wireless connections would drop every 3 to 4 minutes and the wired connections would drop several times per day. At times the DNS would stop working and I would have to reboot the router and my cable modem to correct the problem. I contacted Netgear support and the first solution was to reset the unit to factory defaults and set it up again with no wireless security. The second solution was to perform a different kind of reset to factory defaults and go through setup again. By this time I had read many entries in the user forum where others had been have these same problems for almost a year with no solution. At this point I decided to return the WNR3500 for a refund. I replaced it with a Linksys WRT610N which has performed flawlessly so far. Browsing the internet through the WRT610n is noticeably faster than with the Netgear router.

At this time I would not recommend the Netgear WNR3500 unless you want to be a beta tester for the unit.

I consider myself an expert computer user, having built 15 PCs and having performed countless upgrades to others. I recently moved into a large apartment, with dense walls that prevented connection to my "G" router in some rooms. I bought this "N" router figuring that I wouldn't get much improved "G" signal strength, and that I would end up buying "N" adapters for my devices. I was more than pleasantly surprised then to discover that signal strength was DRAMATICALLY improved while still using my "G" adapters. I can't speak to ease of setup as I didn't use the installation wizard, opting instead to adjust all the settings the old-fashioned way. But it works beautifully. It has all sorts of prioritization settings for video, voice chat, and online gaming. It has all the current security standards and allows for some advanced tweaking for that. Also, as others have noted, Netgear mercifully provided a switch to shut off their silly top-edge light show (it looks cool, but could be a distraction depending on where you put this thing).

Update: I've now been using this thing for a month and have had no problems. None of the dropped signals, etc. that some other reviewers claim. I'm using this wirelessly with two desktop PCs, a laptop PC, a Tivo HD, a Tivo gen 2, and an xbox 360. No problems.

Update 2: Now its been a year and a half -- still works great.

Works great. It has a lot of options, most of which I don't need, but it's nice that they're there in case my needs change.

It did take a while to set up, and the fact that it requires a CD drive was annoying when I tried to set it up using my ultraportable laptop (that lacks an optical drive). I'm not sure why you can't just use your browser to set it up. I eventually got it to work by copying the setup files to a USB keychain drive. The setup process is very slow for some reason, but quite easy.

Most competing products have cryptic labels for the settings and un-helpful "help" text (you're screwed if you don't know what "SPI firewall" means etc.) but this product has good help text that actually explains what each setting does (what a concept!)

I now had this router for almost 2.5 months and as some other reviews reported I also ran into multiple issues for wireless connection drops and unable to connect. All these problems started after I had this router for more then 30 days so I couldn't simiply return it and hence need to find a workaround/fix. This router worked flawlessly for first 30 days but when I changed my appartment I ran into so many problems I thought of just dumping this into garbage and getting linksys but then I refused to give up my $120 without a flight.

In order to fix the problem I did the following
1. Installed lastest updates for my router.
2. Installed lastest wireless adapter drivers on both of my laptops.
3. Reduced the MAX router speed from 300Mbs to 145Mbs (http://192.168.1.1 => Wireless Setting)
4. Tried choosing different Channels until I found 1 where my wireless connection got stable.

Since performing all the above steps I didnt faced any problems whatsoever but I can only use half of the speed allowed on Wireless N. To my understanding problem seems to be that when you use setting for 300Mbs rounter has to use as many as 5 channels at the sametime and chances of conflict with another network become very high. Hope this helps someone going through the same issues as mine.

Just to add to this I also had linksys 310 N router for 2 weeks before I switched to netgear and the reason for the switch was that I only got 130 Mbs connection speed v/s 300Mbs allowed so I decided to give a try to netgear.

So I bought this router a month ago even though the reviews at that time were poor at best. I've never had a problem with netgear and still haven't. I bought this to get gigabit through the house and wirelss n coverage; and to replace my old Super G router (108 mbps). I paired this with a 5ghz wireless bridge to expand my network (Netgear WNHDEB111- Also Awesome!) and a netgear GS116 ProSafe 16-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch. I now have a gigabit wired network and wireless N and set up couldnt have been easier. Albeit a bit akward using the provided CD. But Setup of wireless security was a snap using WPA2 and have had no downage at all from my new network. Definitely glad I bought this router. I only wish It was in the $70 range but given all its abilities $129 isnt too much... 4 out of 5 because of the price.

I bought this router three weeks ago. Worked flawlessly. I had a PS3, Wii, three laptops, and one desktop connected. All of the sudden it would drop connections 5-6 times at least an hour. I thought it was my internet connection but I swapped out the Netgear for an older router and no more dropped connections. So sadly I'm returning it today. I don't know what to do buy anymore.

I've had this router for almost a month now and am finally replacing it.

After repeated complaints of being offline from my wife and kids i started paying attention to the unit. After about a week of logging i found it was never able to maintain a connection for more then 22 hrs (and typically lasted 10-15hrs). The disconnects are completely random and range from 30 seconds to an hour. It could happen while my wife was browsing the internet (wirelessly), or my nephews were playing an online game (wired connection), it didnt really seem to matter. I even checked the logs and found several disconnects when the unit was not in use. The majority of disconnects came on the wireless side of things, but it did occasionally drop the network connection to the entire router, almost like it was rebooting itself. I did check for updates, and the unit does a good job of checking for them as well.

I sucked up my pride and called into Netgear for support only to find a useless excuse for a support staff on the other end. About an hour into the debate, he decided to stop trying to blame all six of my machines (which use both wireless and wired connections), and started blaming my ISP and the modem I was using. After about another 45 minutes of explaining i have a DSL and Cable connection, neither of which can maintain connection on this router (but have no issues directly connecting, or using the old router) he abruptly put me on hold. I put him on speakerphone and went on about my work day (I just sit at my desk all day anyways).. 2hrs later, i was disconnected.

Bought this for a small office. We host a mail server and VPN server and use a moderate amount of bandwidth. This router cannot handle it. With the firewall enabled, it simply gets overwhelmed and will crash or reset the WAN every hour or so. Avoid unless you are positive you have very light usage requirements, and frankly if that's the case you could get a much cheaper, lower end router and be fine. Honestly, there is no target market that this router satisfies and it should not exist unless they are going to upgrade the processor/memory and/or fix the software issues which are limiting its performance.

I purchased the 3500 to replace a Netgear WNR834M that went bad after about two years. Although disappointed that the 834 didn't last very long, I liked the speed and range of the unit, as well as the easy installation, and decided that the 3500 would be a good choice.

Like my previous router, the 3500 was a snap to set up, and it's fast with excellent range--when it works. Unlike the 834, the 3500 drops my wireless connection on a regular basis, forcing me to unplug it and reboot. Very annoying. I've tried contacting Netgear without success. The company provides email support, but no one seems willing to respond to queries. I went to an online forum for Netgear and read that the company had outsourced customer support to India or Indonesia or someplace like that and that support is now nonexistent, which explains why I've been unsuccessful in getting any help with this problem.

Given the above, I cannot recommend this product.